‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ movie review: This Michelle Yeoh-starrer is a cinematic miracle

The multiverse is a fairly new thing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It has really been explored in only two MCU movies until now — ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ and ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ — and I am already bored out of my mind. A concept that has such fascinating storytelling possibilities should have translated to exhilarating cinematic experiences, visually and narratively, but thus far the most exciting thing about the multiverse in those movies has been cheap fan service. This fits into the larger issues MCU has been facing… and, well, I digress. This is a review of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’, a film that makes the aforementioned MCU entries look like tired slogs. I do feelthat the above comparison was necessary. Let me explain.

Led by Michelle Yeoh, ‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ (‘Everything…’ hereon) was everything ‘No Way Home’ and ‘Multiverse of Madness’ were not. It had a minuscule budget in comparison, was not backed by a giant, multi-billion dollar grossing franchise, and the cast was not populated by big, bankable movie stars.

And yet if one were to chop off a few minutes of footage from ‘Everything…’, it will still pack in more ideas and wit than the entirety of those two movies. I kid you not, this is the best science-fiction movie in ages and the most fun I've had while watching a movie this year. ‘Everything…’ riffs on everything from ‘The Matrix’ to ‘Ratatouille’ to Hong Kong martial arts movies, and yet feels fresh and inventive. And insane, bizarre, brilliant, and endlessly clever. The English language will run out of adjectives before ‘Everything…’ can be described in a fitting manner.

Yeoh essays the role of a Chinese immigrant Evelyn Wang, who is a harried owner of a launderette. Her life is the very definition of stress. Her marriage is crumbling, she feels disconnected from her American-born daughter, and she is being harassed by the IRS for not being able to explain her expenses. She’s in a soup, all right.

But things get even weirder for her. She is told by an alternate reality version of her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan, the Short Round of ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom making his acting comeback) who hijacks her husband's body that she is one last hope of the multiverse against somebody threatening to end everything.

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If my description of the basic premise made the movie sound like so many others you have seen in the past, you could not be more wrong. The truth is, it is hard to describe anything more about this story without spoiling it. And the less you know about it, the better. ‘Everything…’ embraces the gloriously bonkers side of the multiverse. It explores horizons most movies delving into parallel worlds can barely touch. The two hour and twenty minutes of screentime, which is formidable for most movies, zips past.

Yeoh is in almost every frame of the movie, and a good thing too. For she is indescribably good -- portraying the pain, confusion, exhaustion, and other moods with a veteran's ease. Stephanie Hsu, who plays her daughter Joy, also impresses, sporting different, gonzo outfits in nearly every other scene, exhibiting her queerness. Ke Huy Quan is endearing as a timid but kind husband, who, lacking the hand-to-hand combat skills of his alt-universe counterpart, relies on his determination and genial, inoffensive personality to deal with things. This is the mother of all comebacks for him.

The themes, admittedly, are somewhat simplistic: generational divide, family values, acceptance, and nihilism. Nothing you have not seen before. But you would be an odd person if you actually pause to examine the thematic depth of this wonderful film. To paraphrase Stephen Fry's words about PG Wodehouse's novels, you do not analyse such sunlit perfection, you just bask in its splendour.

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is an absolute blast.